What Was She Thinking?

Great, that is just great...

So now on top of having restrictions on what kind of options you have for what level of coverage you can receive with your healthcare, and also yielding much of your choice in doctors, apparently now if your employer offers you a health insurance plan, you are required by law to accept it.

At least that is the way I interpret what Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sebelias said this week, under oath, to congress. When she says it's illegal for her to drop her healthcare and sign up for new coverage.

Of course I jest, because as a person with a and scrap of common sense, I know that there is no way the government can force you to accept compensation from your employer. Of course, had you asked me a year ago if the government can force you to purchase health insurance through a private company I would have told you the same thing, that you're nuts, so I guess anything is possible.

Let's make another rash assumption that Ms. Sebelius does in fact know that anyone can choose to not participate in an employers health care program and purchase insurance on their own, presumably through these exchanges. This should be considered a particularly short reaching assumption since anyone can load up the healthcare.gov site and see that there is nothing stopping you from switching so long as you acknowledge you forfeit any share of the premiums that your employer may be paying (pending being a legal citizen and not incarcerated, but let's not go there). The question then becomes what was she thinking when you dropped such a falsehood as "It's illegal."

Let's recall for a moment that she is the former governor of the great state of Kansas, making her a politician, and that politicians lie.

I'm sorry, you want a little more in depth analysis then that? Alright. She does get an offer of coverage from her employer, and, after turning 65 earlier this year, she also qualifies for Medicare Ms. Sebelius would not be eligible for any tax credits buying coverage. But given that she makes just shy of $200,000, chances are she earns too much for that to be a concern in the first place. Nobody enjoys spending money unnecessarily, but if you accept that as a reasonable reason to not sign up for Obamacare, you kind of shoot a brunt of the entire argument for Obamcare in the foot. That is making people spend more money then they would otherwise spend for health coverage they don't desire. Maybe she was frustrated by all of those trick questions like "How many people have signed up?" and "Why doesn't this $700,000,000.00 website work?". Perhaps she thought that, as a member of the executive branch, the ability to simply declare a law fell into her powers as well. We may never know the exact reason.

What does appear apparent is that signing up for healthcare that is not provided by your employer appears to be taking a seat in the 'things you love to do' list between waiting at the DMV and trying to get a straight answer from your congressman.